This invention arose as an improvement in the general type of deboning or separating machine, disclosed and claimed in the copending patent application of Archie Rae McFarland and Bruce L. Preece, Ser. No. 572,155, filed Jan. 18, 1984 and entitled SEPARATING MACHINE HAVING OVERLAPPING SCREW PUMP. The disclosure of such application is hereby incorporated by reference herein. However, the feed mechanism of the present invention is applicable to many other types of machines.
In the McFarland and Preece machine, pieces of bony meat, fowl or fish material are received by a hopper or duct, through which the pieces descend to a pair of rotary horizontal feed screws having overlapping screw flights. The pieces become engaged with the feed screws and are transported horizontally out of the hopper through an exit opening in one end thereof. The feed screws deliver the pieces to a rotary screw pump which carries the pieces to the receiving end of a separating or deboning mechanism, adapted to separate soft meat or fleshy components from the bony and other hard components of the meat, fowl or fish.
In the feed mechanism of the McFarland and Preece machine, some of the larger pieces of meat, fowl or fish material have sometimes not immediately become engaged with the feed screws, but tend to tumble on the rotating feed screws at the bottom of the hopper.